Representatives of the American Federation of Labor, including L. L. Rice, carpenters' union; Ernest Knight, truck drivers' union; and Joe Capper, all of Rapid City are expected to be present at a meeting Thursday night at the Odd Fellows hall at 8 o'clock for the purpose of discussing work on the Provo defense project and the unions' relation to it. City officials and members of the Chamber of Commerce have been invited to attend. An advertisement announcing the meeting appears elsewhere in this issue. The meeting is for all laboring men in Fall River county who are planning to work on the Provo project.
Mr. and Mrs. Robison attended an O. O. F. meeting at Edgemont last Monday.
Quite a number attended the AAA meeting at Edgemont Tuesday.
Mrs. Joe Scott and Mrs. August Coleman were callers here Wednesday. Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Erschen went to Hot Springs Monday on local business.
Mr. and Mrs. Hatz, Miss Chartma, and Mr. Froman of Deadwood were business callers Wednesday. Mr. and Mrs. Hatz are planning on putting in a restaurant.
Agnes Johnson left for Colorado Springs Wednesday after a week's visit with her parents and other relatives. Friday she was married to C. S. McLeod. They will live in Colorado Springs, where he is employed.
Mr. Heiser received a message from the eastern part of the state last week, telling him his older brother had passed away. Owing to his health, Mr. Heiser was unable to go. He is now living at Hot Springs and had come down to visit in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Ed Stearns, and sons, Otto and Eddie.
J. M. Johnson had dental work done at Edgemont Wednesday.
Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Johnson and Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Johnson were transacting business at the county seat Friday.
Joe Trotter went to Belle Fourche Saturday to attend a wool growers' meeting. He returned home early Sunday morning.
Stan Parks who has been assisting Joe Trotter the past few years left Friday for other work. Joe got a herder from Denver.
A very nice spring rain and some snow fell Friday night and most of the day Saturday. A nice lot of moisture went into the ground.
Albert Soske Jr., came up from Chadron Friday and visited his father and brother. he returned to school Sunday.
Fred Coates and Art Honadel were transacting business at the county seat Monday.
Mrs. Bill Ormsby and sons. John and Eddie Marty, spent Sunday in the home of their daughter and sister, Mrs. Louis Rickard.
Ed Stearns moved a granary he had purchased from C. K. Calland Monday. M. S. Dunbar and Charlie Stearns helped him.
Sidney Hoar spent last week in the home of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Hoar.
Art Bond trucked a load of stock to Crawford for A. C. Soske Tuesday.
Mr. and Mrs. C. O. Johnson went to Edgemont Monday and bought a new secondhand car. Mrs. Wickersham came home with them for a visit.
A. D. Gow took some stock to Crawford Monday for the sale ring.
Mrs. M. E. Kinser and son, Jerry, came out from Edgemont Monday to help Morris Kinser with his work. Mrs. Kinser reports that her husband is in the Lutheran hospital at Hot Springs.
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Hoar spent Sunday in the home of her brother, Morris Kinser.
Mr. and Mrs. Louis Rickard and children were at Hot Springs on business Saturday.
Darrell Hoar was ill Monday and unable to be at school.
WASHINGTON, March 19 (AP) - Following discussion with federal officials, Representative Case (Rep., S. D.) stated that there was no federal law requiring men to have a union card to work on defense projects at Rapid City, Provo or Oacoma in South Dakota.
"The question is up to the contractor who has the job," the congressman declared in a statement. Case said he had received many letters on the subject and conferred with General Eugene Raybold, chief of the army engineers' corps, labor advisors, and officials of the federal security agency, which administers employment registration offices.
"Personally, I do not believe that any man should be required to join any organization or pay fees to any one to work on defense projects in time of war," Case said. "As many as 12,000 different people may work on these projects before they are done. It would be a tragedy for anyone to collect $50 or $25 or $10 a head, plus dues, from those people.
"I have been told that racketeers from Chicago and Omaha have been on the grounds and boasted that they would get a 'take' of at least $250,000 of the Rapid City and Provo jobs. If such creatures are around, I hope they are thrown out of the state."
Case declared there was no need to bargain on these defense jobs as the wages would be fixed by the department of labor and could not be below the prevailing wage.
One hundred sixty-eight men met Thursday night in the Odd Fellows hall to hear the plans of A. F. of L. leaders to organize the workers to be employed on the Provo defense project. Paul Martin of Hot Springs was chairman of the meeting. Among those who talked were Albert Maag of Huron, president of the South Dakota Federation of Labor; L. L. Price of Rapid City, carpenters' union; "Stormy" Knight of Rapid City, truckers' union; and Mr. Martin.
Asserting that "organized labor is on the spot in this western territory." Mr. Maag blamed businessmen who are more interested in profits than social progress for much of the opposition to unions. He claimed that newspapers, "controlled by big advertisers," never lose a chance to "cast a dagger into the labor movement." But labor, he added, has a "good friend in the White House" who will see that it gets its rights.
Labor has met its full responsibility in the present emergency, Mr. Maag said. It buys the greatest percentage of defense bonds. The real bottleneck of the emergency, he claimed, is the industrialists who are not satisfied with present profits. Labor, he said, is not the bottleneck.
"There is no such thing as racketeers in the South Dakota labor movement," the federation head asserted. He explained the benefits of unionism, how unions look after members, and how locals operate. He laid particular emphasis on the social gains of the labor movement during the past eight years.
An earnest, forceful talker, Mr. Price made it plain that the union movement in the Black Hills is not a Rapid City movement. Though the headquarters will be there, the men who belong to the unions will be scattered all over this area, and will have as much voice in the locals as the members who live in Rapid City.
Department of labor figures show that union men in America make 47 per cent more wages than non-union men, he said.
Mr. Price spent some time in attacking the Rapid City Journal for what he called a "vicious" editorial. The editorial, he said, made the claim that unions were playthings of high-pressure "foreign racketeers," who "gouged" each worker $50 for the right to work on defense projects.
The speaker cited union benefits which workers would get to "dispose of the charge" that the workers would be gouged. Then he told of an interview with Journal Editor Hitchcock in which the latter "denied all but two points of his own editorial."
In the editorial, Mr. Price said, was the statement that union "racketeers" expected a "take" of $200,00 from the Rapid City project and $500,00 from the Provo project.
Mr. Price questioned Mr. Hitchcock on this statement, and the latter said it was made to him by a Rapid City businessman. The businessman, Mr. Price quoted Mr. Hitchcock as saying, heard, through a hotel transom, two strange men make the statement about the "take." Mr. Hitchcock had no other proof on the union labor "take" on the two defense jobs except the Rapid City businessman's claim that he heard the subject discussed through a hotel transom, asserted Mr. Price.
The Rapid City union man explained why it would not be "wise" to organize union locals in Hot Springs. In its fifty-seven years, experience, the A. F. of L. has found that new locals on large jobs do not work, he said.
A reprinted editorial in Thursday's Star brought comment from Mr. Price. The editorial was a letter written by an Arkansas lawyer to a Memphis newspaper, in which the lawyer was critical of labor's demands during the emergency. Charging that the editorial was a "half-truth," Mr. Price said that labor is "almost as important as the man behind the cannon."
Without mentioning Congressman Francis Case by name, Mr. Price took a critical view of public men who, he said, are "extremely misinformed" on the labor movement. (In a statement this week, Mr. Case strongly condemned "racketeers" in the labor unions who "prey" on workman.) Mr. Price insisted this isn't true at all.
Three international union representatives are now in Rapid City, he said. They are men who rose from the ranks and are the "racketeers who are here to get fat and rich off laboring men," he added, ironically.
Paul Martin, who spoke as the local representative at the meeting, said he had been a resident of Hot Springs for thirty years. He was president of the Chamber of Commerce, he recalled, when the business streets were paved and the street lights installed and when the city bought the auditorium.
He explained how he happened to become connected with the labor movement. He discovered, through investigation, that the unions are composed of loyal citizens. He attended a hod carriers' meeting in Rapid City and saw how democratic the working men are.
Wages for common labor and truckers on Nebraska defense projects is 75 to 85 cents an hour, while for the Provo and Rapid City projects the wage rate was set at 50 cents. He blamed the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce for the lower wage standard in the Hills. Every defense project in the nation (except the one at Burlington, Ia.) is or has been built by union labor, he said.
The greater wages which union workers would get would more than pay for their initiation fees and union dues, he said, as he urged the formation of a union here. He told how a bus ride from Hot Springs to Provo and back each day would cost each worker $1.50 a day, besides taking three hours for the trip. He said this was justification for the union scale.
Congressman Case "misunderstands the situation" if he thinks that some men are here to get a big "take" from the working men, Mr. Martin said. Local workers would make a "terrible mistake" if they don't get together to meet with the Provo contractor, and ask for 75 cents an hour for common labor instead of 50 cents, he insisted.
"Stormy" Knight of the truck drivers' union, Rapid City, talked on the organization of Rapid City truckers and of the efforts to organize all Hills truckers. He cited his experience with Buckingham Transfer and told of trucking conditions at the Schundler feldspar mill at Custer.
The labor leaders talked for two hours, at the end of which they asked for questions from the audience.
PAUL MARTIN brought up a question at the union meeting Thursday night that should get Hot Springs businessmen to thinking. He said that workers who ride the bus from Rapid City to the airbase site near there will pay 2 cents a mile for the ride - or 25 cents each way, since the airbase is 12 1/2 miles from Rapid City.
If the Provo defense workers who live in Hot Springs are forced to pay the 2-cent rate to ride a bus from here to the site, they will pay around $4.50 a day for the round trip. Obviously few men could afford to pay this fare, particularly the men doing common labor. They would prefer to live in trailer houses at the site or at some place nearby. Hot Springs could not hope to benefit to any marked extent from the project if the workers are compelled to pay this fare.
What Hot Springs should go after is the establishment of a bus line between here and Provo with a fare of around a cent a mile. If the fare were 75 cents to $1 for a daily round trip ticket, Hot Springs could, we believe, hope to accommodate many of the workers. And it would be a boon to local men who expect to work at the project and commute back and forth daily.
The tire situation is the thing which threatens to take Provo out of the picture so far as Hot Springs is concerned. The workers simply will not wear out their tires by traveling 75 miles a day, knowing they cannot get any more until after the war; and some of the workers won't have any tires to wear out. If they can't go back and forth in buses, at a reasonable fare, they will live in trailer houses on the scene or at towns close by (Edgemont is offering free trailer camps for Provo workers.)
Hot Springs' salvation, it seems to us, is to promote a bus line. Buses can get tires. The fare must be a reasonable one, which even the lowest paid workers on the project can afford to pay.
One form of transportation from Hot Springs to Provo is "out," definitely. Steam trains are not practicable, we have been told, since at least three hours would be required for the trip each way.
But buses should not be out of the picture. There should be a bus line somewhere, with a number of older buses, which would be eager to take over a run with a heavy traffic.
As its contribution to the effort to promote a bus line between Hot Springs and Provo, The Star today is putting out a "feeler" to one of the biggest bus lines in the country - the Burlington Trailways - suggesting that it might find such a line to be a profitable venture. When we get the answer, we will report to our readers.
Others with ideas on how to promote a Hot Springs - Provo bus line are invited to get busy. The time is getting short. By April or May there may be thousands of men employed at Provo. We want some of them to live in Hot Springs.
About twenty-five contractors and contractors' representatives stayed at the Evans hotel over the weekend, leaving this morning for Edgemont, where bids will be opened for the construction contracts on the Provo defense project.
Mr. and Mrs. Roy Robison went to Edgemont one day last week and brought her sister, Mrs. Rosa Pierce, home from the hospital where he has been the past month. She is much improved.
Otto Heiser left from Custer the last of the week for an army camp. Ed Stearns took him as far as Edgemont, where he went from there with some friends. Hope the war is soon over so no more of the boys will have to go.
H. L. Wheeler was a caller here Thursday.
A very nice snow fell here last week which made the roads muddy for a number of days.
Allan Coates and family were out from Edgemont to visit in the home of his father. He took back a load of hay.
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Piel and family attended church at Heppner Sunday. In the evening they visited Mrs. W. Dainton, who teaches in the Erschen district.
Allan Coates trucked a load of stock to Riverton, Wyo., for Art Honadel. Art accompanied him. There was a stock sale Monday, so Art stayed, but Allen returned home the last of the week.
Mr. and Mrs. Louis Rickard and children were dinner guests at the home of his brother, Leonard, Sunday.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Robison came down Wednesday and spent the day in the home of his brother, Roy. He had purchased some wire from C. K. Calland which he took home.
Mr. and Mrs. L. Davis and daughter, Miss Wyoma Sturdivant, and Miss Marjorie Kellogg were guests at the Art Honadel home Sunday.
Mr. and Mrs. M. S. Dunbar, Ray Fales and Dean Sturdivant went to Oelrichs Sunday and visited in the Ray Milligan home. They went mostly to see the twin girls they have adopted lately.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Coates spent Sunday afternoon in the home of his son, Allan Coates.
Mr. and Mrs. C. O. Johnson and Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Johnson went to Winner, S. D., Sunday. They took Miss Opal, who has employment, and also visited Miss Alta Mae, who has been working there for sometime. They report a very good trip.
Richard Weyl, who has been employed at Small's Clothing store, has accepted a stenographic position in Edgemont on the Provo defense project. He plans to go to work Monday. Mr. Weyl will continue to make his home here, driving to Edgemont each day.
RAPID CITY, March 25 (AP) - Rapid City businessmen organized a labor relations group today which many said would seek to prevent closed shop contracts with unions which are being stimulated by two large military projects scheduled for construction in the Black Hills.
The Building and Construction Trades council, A. F. of L., this week purchased lumber in Hot Springs to take to Edgemont to build general offices for all union activities, announced L. L. Price of Rapid City, business agent for carpenters' local 2027. The building, which will cost approximately $500, will be located one block from the Edgemont armory, on lots rented from the school district.
Mr. Price came to Hot Springs yesterday from Rapid City for the week end here and at Edgemont. He said he planned to be connected with union activities on the Provo project and probably would stay in Hot Springs.
Neither Mr. Price nor the construction concern which has the contract for building the railroad on the project has yet made a public statement on what the labor policy will be at Provo. However, it is said the contractors - J. A. Terteling & Son of Boise, Idaho, who built the Hermiston project in Oregon - maintained a closed shop there. The Hermiston project is similar to the one to be built at Provo.
The contract for building the "igloos" which will compose the munitions depot will be let next week. Terteling & Son are expected to bid on this project also.
In the matter of housing the hundreds of workers to be employed on the project, one observer remarked that a commissary outfit might be engaged to set up bunkhouses and eating places right on the site. This type of accommodations is frequently used by men without families. Big government projects like the one at Fort Peck, Mont., had commissary outfits to feed and house the men employed on them.
WASHINGTON, March 27 (AP) - Representative Case (Rep., S. D.) said he was informed by federal security agency officials that every applicant for employment on defense projects in South Dakota must be registered whether or not he is a union member.
Case had asked whether there were any restrictions imposed by the agency's employment office on applicants for work and especially whether a union card was required for registration.
When the bids are opened Tuesday on the Provo munitions depot, the way will be opened for the biggest single construction project South Dakota has ever seen - a project which will be rushed to completion before snow flies next winter.
The cost of the project is a military secret, but it has been estimated to be in excess of the $15,000,000 figure announced several months ago by Congressman Francis Case, who was instrumental in obtaining the depot for this corner of the state. The number of men to be employed during the height of construction may reach a total well above the present population of Fall River county.
The contract for the construction of the railroad on the project was awarded last week to Terteling & Son of Boise, Idaho. Workmen for the Burlington railroad are now engaged in building sidetracks at Provo. Wells are being drilled on the depot site.
Because of the lack of adequate transportation from Provo to nearby towns and cities, it seems probable that most of the men employed on the job will live in barracks at Provo. Many of them will doubtless live in trailers near the site, and some will live in Edgemont.
The number of workers who will live in Hot Springs will probably not be large, due to the distance which they would have to travel each day to and from work.
It can be said that all construction activities - both by the contractors and the government - will be right at the site. Hopes that the headquarters of the contractors or the government supervisors might be maintained in Hot Springs appear to have gone a-glimmering. The need for speed in construction, and transportation difficulties due to the tire situation, seem to have made imperative a concentration of all activities at Provo.
The Edgemont armory is now used by the government as its headquarters. This is a temporary arrangement, it is believed. In a few weeks, even the government may have its headquarters at Provo.
Edgemont merchants have noticed a business stimulation during the last few weeks because of the increasing number of government men arriving there to work on the project. One businessman says his March business is up 50 per cent over the same month last year, and he is certain other merchants in his town have also had sizable increases.
On Edgemont streets Sunday were a number of out-or-state automobiles, indicating that the town is filling up with folk going to work on the project or to engage in business which might be favorably affected by the thousands of men who will be employed by the contractor.
Two new restaurants were open for business in Edgemont, both on the main street corner. One current report is that Edgemont expects much "night life" activity because of the project.
Both Edgemont and Hot Springs may find itself up against an almost insoluble transportation problem to the Provo depot because of the tire situation, since the use of private automobiles will be restricted because of the need for conserving rubber. Workers who ordinarily would live in the two towns and drive to the project now won't feel that they can do this. Unless bus or rail transportation is provided for them, the great majority will live on the site.
(See page 2, column 1, for further discussion of the Provo transportation problem.)
While it is yet to early to state definitely whether the Provo project will be a union or an open shop proposition, it seems to be pretty well understood that the contractors will prefer to employ union labor. This belief is based on the fact that only one defense project in the country - at Burlington, Ia. - has been built by non-union workers. All the rest have used union men.
Most government contractors seem to prefer union help, since unions relieve them of the task of getting workmen. A contractor will, for instance, ask the carpenters' union for a hundred carpenters. The union will send out word to the locals that work is available at a certain point. All idle carpenters who want that type of work will then move to the scene to report for work.
THE PROBLEM of getting daily transportation between Hot Springs and Provo for defense workers is going to be a tough one to solve. Bus men who have given the proposed route a preliminary survey doubt that it would be practicable one in view of the present difficulties in obtaining buses and tires.
The Star last week wrote to the passenger traffic manager of the Burlington Transportation company, Chicago, asking if his company would be interested in such a proposition. His reply follows:
"May I ask you to consider this a **ere acknowledgment of your letter of March 21, with reference to establishing service between Hot Springs and Provo, S. D., until I have had an opportunity to go into the matter with our officers in that territory.
"When my study through that source had been complete, I will advise you further, although, frankly, I cannot hold out very much encouragement as to our ability to operate this service, because I have a good deal of doubt if we have equipment available therefore. The demands that are being made on us for service of this kind on our more than 8,000 miles of operation has just about exhausted our available equipment, and it is not possible to purchase additional cars at this time. Of course, there is also the very important question as to whether or not there is a sufficient amount of traffic here to justify this from a revenue standpoint."
A Burlington Trailways official looked over the Hot Springs to Provo route last week. He was not optimistic about a bus line over it. He did say that the lowest fare he could see for a round trip between the two points was $1.35.
Frankie Richer, who has a state permit to carry a limited number of passengers anywhere in the county, is dubious about a bus line to Provo. He says that permits and insurance costs alone for a bus would be close to $600. New buses cannot be purchased now and old buses are a scarce article.
Another factor which discourages bus operation from Hot Springs to the defense project is the condition of the highways. One experienced bus man said a bus would not stand up more than six months on the run, due to the rough and uneven condition of the road.
The idea of a bus line to Provo during the construction of the munitions depot is still being explored by bus officials and others interested in promoting it, The Star understands , but we suspect that the workers ultimately may have to provide their own transportation. This can be done by a share expense plan, in which one man provides his car and the several men who ride with him chip in with enough money to buy gasoline and oil. When this driver's tires are gone, he can ride with some other man who still has good rubber on his car.
The tire situation is the real bottleneck in motor transportation these days, and it will affect travel between here and Provo just as it affects travel all over the country. Workmen who need automobiles to go to their places of employment should band together to make their tires last as long as possible.
A BLACKTOPPED HIGHWAY, approximately 26 miles in length, may be built by the U. S. government from the Provo ordnance depot east to highway 79. The state will locate the road, but the federal government will build it - if it is built - and it probably will be.
The proposed route is a bee-line from the munitions project to No. 79 but there is a possibility that the route which will eventually be chosen will be the county road, known as the Oelrichs - Edgemont highway about three miles to the north.
The purpose of the highway will be to hook up the Provo depot with the North Western railroad at Oelrichs, and thus provide another means of transportation to and from the project.
The Edgemont to Provo road, a stretch seven miles long, is also in the cards for blacktopping.
Nothing has been said as yet about blacktopping No. 18 between Hot Springs and Edgemont. If this is done, the state highway commission will probably have to do it. And the state highway commission is doing very little road construction these days, and is not likely to do much until after the war ends.
Highways having a military value will be built by the federal government. Others will wait until peaceful days return.
Construction began this week on a cement plant, to manufacture culverts for the Provo project. The plant, owned by the South Dakota Concrete Products company of Rapid City, is being built in Catholicon addition, south of Hot Springs, in the field across the road east from the Trimmer houses. It is said that fifty men will be employed there.
Erwin Caylor and Bob Miller started work at Provo this week.
Ormand Callan, son of Mr. and Mrs. D. O. Callan, began work Monday on the Black Hills ordnance depot at Provo. Mr. Callan, who has been employed with the Indian service, has transferred to the war department as junior engineer's aid.
J. A. Terteling & Son, Boise, Idaho, were the apparent low bidders on the work at the Black Hills ordnance depot, Provo, on which bids were opened Tuesday at the engineers' office at Edgemont.
This announcement was made by Colonel R. Selee, district engineer, Fort Peck, Mont., who came Tuesday for the opening of bids on certain phases of the work. Colonel Selee, who stayed at the Evans hotel, left today for Fort Peck. He plans to be here frequently during the construction of the Provo project. It and the Rapid City airbase are the two largest defense projects under construction in his area.
Temporary offices of the area engineer are being maintained in the Edgemont armory, in charge of Major Brown. In the course of the next few weeks the offices will be moved to the site.
Colonel Selee expressed the belief, in conversation with a Star reporter, that Hot Springs, due to its proximity to the Provo project, is bound to benefit greatly through transient trade and the influx of material men and salesman who will be connected with the new depot.
There's the distinct possibility, he said, that Hot Springs will have one of its busiest summers in years and that the lack of tourist trade this year, due to the tire situation, will more than be made up by the large number of people who will come here because of the ordnance depot.
Colonel Selle cautiously refrained from making a prediction on what the ordnance depot would mean to Hot Springs, but, basing his opinion on experiences elsewhere, he suggested that this community is in for a busy summer.
An attempt will be made to complete the project before winter, to set a speed record in its construction. To do this, several thousand men will be brought here to work at Provo. The coming of this huge body of workers is certain to make itself felt all over this region, particularly at the site and at Edgemont.
Policing, sanitation, and other problems will need to be solved in the immediate proximity of the project, where the men will live. Hot Springs, by being thirty-five miles from Provo, will largely escape the impact of these special problems, but at the same time will be a center for many activities and the stopping place for men connected with depot.
The adequate hotel facilities in Hot Springs will be an important factor in putting Hot Springs into the Provo picture.
The past week has been terribly windy and cold, everyone wishing for calmer days.
Betty Honadel spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights with her schoolmate, Wyoma Sturdivant.
Lots of machinery unloaded here the past week, also an extra gang for the C. B. & Q.
Miss Taylor had as her week-end guests, Miss Wyoma Sturdivant and Miss Elnor Johnson.
Louis Hudson purchased some barley of C. K. Calland and hauled it Saturday.
Roy Hudson trucked some sheep home Saturday which he had purchased from A. C. Soske.
Margaret Piel was a passenger to Edgemont Saturday morning to have some dental work done.
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Scott and children came down Sunday morning to visit in the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robison.
Fred Coates had a pleasant surprise Sunday when Allan Coates and family, Leslie Coates and family, Mrs. George Coates and son, John, and Miss Alice Honadel came to help him celebrate his birthday.
Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Hoar and son spent Sunday with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Hoar.
The Bell telephone men have started their new office on the north section line of Provo this week.
Mrs. O. H. Scott has been sick abed this week with a sore throat and a cold.
Louis Rickard moved his family and household goods to Minnekahta the first of the week, he and George Marty will drive back and forth to work.
Quite a number of new men and all of the old ones were called to work on the section last week.
Mrs. Louis Rickard and children spent Monday with Mrs. Frank Robbins.
Frank Piel and family made a business trip to Hot Springs Monday evening.
Approximately forty workers, the majority of whom will be local men, will be employed manufacturing reinforced pipe at the South Dakota Concrete Products company plant under construction in Catholicon addition, south of town. Only a few key men will be imported from the company's other plants, according to Earl Heby of Helena, Mont., who is here supervising the construction.
The plant will be under the supervision of Ralph Miracle of Helena, who will make his home in Hot Springs for the duration of the work. The amount of concrete pipe to be produced, to be used on the Provo project, and the length of time the plant will operate here are undisclosed because of military censorship.
The company, which has its headquarters in Watertown, at present operates plants in Rapid City, Mitchell and Watertown.
The first unit of the plant started producing pipe this morning, and the remaining two units, which are being constructed now, will be finished with the next week and start production. The plant which covers an area of approximately two city blocks, is on the west side of the highway to Cascade and just east of the Trimmer houses.
All the hauling of raw materials for the job is being done by the Black Hills Coal and Transfer company, operated by Clem Larive and Harry Marty.
Stewart Mickelson of Selby, S. D., and Joe Danberger of Mobridge, S. D., have arrived here and have accepted positions as engineers on the Provo defense project. Mr. Mickelson is a nephew of Mr. and Mrs. John Seeley and Mrs. Ann Taylor of Hot Springs. The Mickelson family will probably make its home in Hot Springs, but Mr. Danbergers' family will remain in Mobridge.
Edgemont business men report that they are getting their first taste of the promised business boom from the Black Hills ordnance depot as office workers have started to take up homes there and trailer houses are dotting every vacant lot.
One Edgemont merchant, when questioned Saturday, said his clothing and dry goods business had doubled over what it was a few months ago, and expressed uncertainty as to what he would do if the business increased as rapidly as the population of Edgemont appears to be increasing.
The headquarters for the government division of the project, at present housed in the U. S. armory building in Edgemont, are becoming more closely guarded each day. All guards and workers connected with the project are supplied with a red badge with their number on it when they start to work, and they must wear the badge at all times during the working day.
Guards are stationed throughout the grounds to park cars and watch all who enter and leave. At a desk in the entrance room of the armory, all who enter are required to register their names, the time of entry, and the reason for their visit. They are then taken to the information desk, where the switchboard girl calls the man the visitor wishes to see. A guard then conducts the visitor to the proper person. All visitors must record the time they leave at the registration desk before leaving the building.
Some fifty desks with typewriters and clerks at each desk are lined in one end of the large building, while the other end is partitioned off for the main officials of the office.
The most common business in Edgemont now seems to be restaurants, with a number of them lining the streets. Workers report, however, that it is difficult to get a meal at noon, as all the cafes are so crowded during the lunch hour.
American Federation of Labor unions have "taken a licking" on both the Rapid City and Provo defense projects, and both will be open shop jobs, a man connected with the union movement informed The Star today.
The wage for common labor and truck drivers on both projects will be 50 cents an hour, he said. Similar labor on defense projects in this part of the country is paid from 65 to 75 cents an hour.
The decision to declare both projects open shop was made at a two-day meeting last week-end at Rapid City, The Star was informed.
The contractors at both projects and nine A. F. of L. national representatives were present at the meeting to argue the open and closed shop question. A representative of the war production board was also in attendance, brought here by the unions.
When it became apparent that the Rapid City project would be built under open shop conditions, The Star was told that a thousand union members living in Rapid City were prepared to move to Fall River county to work on the Provo project. But when the Provo project was also declared open shop, the unionists were undecided what to do. Many of them it is said, will move to Utah to work on government projects there.
The class of workers to be mainly affected by open shop conditions at the two projects will be laborers, truck drivers, and carpenters, whose wage scale will probably be 25 cents an hour below the union scale. Other crafts are expected to be paid the union wage.
L. L. Price of Rapid City, labor organizer, who had purchased lumber for the union headquarters at Edgemont, is said to be planning to go to another state to work on a government project. The headquarters building at Edgemont has been abandoned and the lumber will probably be sold.
CRAWFORD (Neb.) News: According to a letter received by W. O. Barnes, secretary of the Crawford Chamber of Commerce, from Representative Harry D. Coffee, congressman from this district, there is little chance for Crawford being designated a defense housing area on the strength of the Provo munitions dump project.
The regulations for such a housing area demand that the area be within two miles of a defense project, or at a distance of not over 40 cents fare from the project, Coffee stated.
The chance that exception might be made in Crawford's case if a work train were to be run between here and Provo was discussed Tuesday at the chamber meeting. The chance that a government housing project might be started on the desert near Provo seems small, and Crawford, as the most easily accessible point by rail, might be able to meet the federal housing commission's regulations for housing some of the families connected with the project.
(On the contrary, The Star understands that most of the workers on the Provo "desert," as the Crawford News ungraciously terms this section of Fall River county, will be housed in barracks to be built by contractors right at the site. The barracks will be used by single men and by married men who leave their families in their home towns. Married men who bring their families here will probably live in trailer houses and in town as near the project as possible.)
Most effort, however, will be exerted to make the commission realize that Crawford's proximity to Fort Robinson demands a defense housing area designation. The civilian personnel at Fort Robinson has long been in need of adequate housing facilities, and with a probable increase in the number of civilian employees there, it is possible that priorities on building materials may be forthcoming for that purpose.
It was expected that actual construction on the Provo project will start this week.
Already tons of big machinery is being shipped into the site of the project. A million board feet of lumber is on hand for the many concrete forms that will be necessary to build the more than 800 igloo-shaped reinforced concrete units.
While the construction company will furnish many of its own skilled workmen and machine operators, there will be many local laborers needed also. W. O. Barnes, who has had charge of the registration for Provo labor here in Crawford, announces that to date 153 men have filed applications.
The announcement that work on the project would start so soon fell as a surprise to most people in this locality. Rumors since the announcement of the location of the project have had it canceled several times. The letting of the contract, however insures quick work and a chance for Crawford business to derive immediate benefit if the right job of promotion is carried though.
Congressman Francis Case this week sent the following letter to Fall River county officials on the subject of highways leading to the Provo defense project:
"Recently, Harry C. Westphal, secretary of the South Dakota state highway commission, and Paul E. Bellamy of Rapid City were here as a special delegation sent by the governor to work on defense certification for one of the highways in the state.
"While working with them on lining up that matter, I brought up the subject of access roads to the Black Hills ordnance depot at Provo, in line with the conversation we had when we drove over to Edgemont about the first of the year.
"Mr. Westphal has returned to Pierre and yesterday I was glad to receive from him the following telegram:
"'Be advised South Dakota highway commission now making preliminary investigation access roads Provo project and will start surveys soon as advised of clearance by war department.'
"Under the procedure set up, all these projects must be proposed or initiated through the state highway commission on a certain form and submitted through the district federal engineer, to the public roads administration. They in turn submit them to the war department, I may be able to help when they have reached that point."
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